Regina's new office was still being cleared out, as it had been unoccupied for a while and used for storage. Still, a beautiful and obviously expensive name plate with her job title and name- 副影-自来也令神娃女王 was now on the door, and the receipts for her desk, chair, office couch, and other acquired accoutrement were taped to it.
'The bureaucracy is efficient, as always.'
There was an envelope in her mailbox.
Regina snagged it as she walked by. She didn't have a desk yet, or any privacy. She wondered what mail could possibly be going to her yet.
She hoped whoever it was had had the decency to chicken-peck at one of the few office computers.
Her first edict when she assumed enough authority would be the mandate to transition all paperwork to typeface. She was going to claim it was for standardization, even though everyone who knew her would know it was utter shit.
She glanced at the outside. No such luck, probably. But at least it was in very precise strokes- she might actually be able to read it anyway.
"Hokage-sama, mail for you." She put the fancy, embossed envelopes into his waiting hands.
"What about that one?" He asked, gesturing to the one under her name.
She looked at it.
"It was in my office box, I don't know what it is yet."
He pursed his lips. "Open it?"
She knew enough to know that wasn't really a request. He was very polite when ordering her around.
She obediently slashed it open with her nail, and removed the paper.
Yeah… she couldn't read this. She could pick parts of it out, though. Something about a meeting- that was an address and a time. It was in Konoha.
"May I see?" he sounded amused.
She forked it over. If he didn't translate it, she'd probably miss it. Or have to spend an hour looking up the right kanji to make sense of it at all.
"Shimura-san means to work fast."
He let the letter fall to his desk and stared at the closed door.
"Is that what the meeting he wants is about?" She asked, looking at the letter curiously. It was upside down from her perspective, anyway, so she didn't know what she was hoping to see.
"It is an invitation to begin your apprenticeship tomorrow." the Hokage rubbed at his forehead. He looked suddenly exhausted. "He would like for you to meet him at Hanami at nine pm."
"The kaiseki place?" Ew. Regina wouldn't eat that.
He looked at her obvious disgust and snorted. "I don't think either of you will eat it. Shimura-san is infamous for not eating food that has not been prepared in front of him."
'Then why make me go there?'
'Oh. Duh. It's a public place. Probably a limited amount of places to have meetings.'
"I look forward to the experience." She said, not bothering to modify her tone to make the lie even somewhat believable. It's not like the Hokage was thrilled, either.
He hummed equally unconvincingly. "I'm sure. In any case, your princess tutoring will begin next week. Madam Shijimi has taken a special interest in your welfare and will be sending her personal recommendation for a teacher."
'That bodes ill for me. I don't like powerful people being interested in my life.'
"Evidently she spent some time in a country far away as a young girl, learning a foreign language, and has heard about your time in Iron. She is interested in talking with you."
'Less weird, people always liked to use me for my English when I lived in Japan before. Still not a fan, but less terrifying.'
"She speaks my language?" Regina asked, to confirm.
He handed her letter back to her. "She believes so, in any case." He studied her face. "It would not go amiss for you to be friendly with her. The Daimyo's wife is quite influential."
'That was another order. He gives the worst orders. 'Go, be apprenticed to a traitorous lunatic.' 'Please, spend your free time becoming friends with a woman who could hire us to kill you.' 'Sit in on this meeting and don't yell at my ninja for behaving like wild animals.'
"I understand." She said, trying to keep her voice unaffected.
He smiled at her a little bit, then dismissed her for the day. It was technically before her working hours were up, but only by about ten minutes.
If you figured in all the mandatory 'voluntary' princess-related lessons, she was working more than 50 hours a week anyway.
That wasn't including the Japanese language tutoring she was having to sign up for. She'd get all that kanji beat into her head if it killed her. At least she could do her homework at her work desk in between other work.
She left and waited by the Academy, noting that there was a crowd of parents doing the same thing.
"Good afternoon," she greeted.
There was a chorus of responses. A couple people stared.
The Yamanaka woman from the flower shop actually smiled at her, though. Regina waved at her in particular.
"How was the office?" Yamanaka-san asked, brushing her hair out of her face. Damn, it looked so luxurious.
'I'm going to ask her what conditioner she uses, like immediately after this. It's official princess business. Very official. Very princess.'
She needed it. Her hair was not reacting well to most of the products here.
"It was good," Regina answered vaguely with a smile. "How was your day?"
"You know flower shops." The woman chuckled. "Not very busy. I read quite a bit. How are the boys?"
"Doing pretty well so far." Regina didn't know what else to say to that. They seemed to be fighting the urge to duke it out in some sort of four-foot-and-under Battle Royale.
"Uchiha-kun as well?" The woman asked, eyebrow raised. Oh yeah. His coma was probably hot gossip.
Regina may or may not have made a mistake in implying that he was okay. She didn't know if that was confidential or not. Probably not, if the Hokage hadn't told her to keep her trap shut? "He's awake, but not really able to receive visitors yet. I'm hoping he will be able to return to the Academy in a few weeks."
Several women nodded, even ones that were pointing not looking at her.
Regina tried not to roll her eyes. If they were going to listen in on her conversation, they might as well be obvious about it. It was just rude.
Yamanaka-san grinned. Regina had the uncanny feeling that she understood what she was thinking.
'That's… likely. People here do all sorts of things I had previously supposed were impossible.'
The bossy and improbably hot Inuzuka clan leader was here, too. She looked bored. Did she always look bored?
'This place is full of absolute foxes. This is unfair. Unamerican. Probably a violation of my rights and an assault on my imagination.'
The kids were released in a riotous mass, and they ran out and bombarded their guardians with affection and bad drawings of unknown objects.
Naruto came out looking a little apprehensive, peeking out from the doorframe.
That must have been hard for him before. It's not like kids were polite or aware of social situations like that.
And they were deeply unsympathetic towards what they determined as weakness. Kids could just smell it.
He saw her and bolted- nearly knocking down several other kids in the process.
"Don't run other people over." She scolded lightly, opening her arms for him to fling himself into. "It's not polite."
"Yes!" He chirped, taking the criticism like a champ. Regina picked up the backpack that he'd flung on the ground, which was difficult considering he was still stuck on her and throwing off her balance.
She bowed lightly to the other parents and scrammed before Naruto started wiggling.
They booked it to the hospital, where she installed Naruto in the soft chair in Sasuke's room.
"Okay, so." She looked at her kids.
Sasuke was out like a light still. At some point, he'd evidently decided to open some of his classmates' letters.
Naruto was staring at her with the intensity of the sun.
"Naruto, I need you to do your homework and keep an eye on Sasuke-kun." She commanded, running her hands through her hair. This was stress. It was all stress. What was she supposed to do with them when she had to do classes at night?
Stupid job. Wanting her to be good at it and mildly useful.
"I have to take my own classes." She confided in Naruto. "I'm sorry that that means I don't have all the time I want to for you both until I'm finished."
He looked suspicious. "What kinds of classes does an adult have to take? You're not in the Academy."
"It's because I didn't go to the Academy." She said honestly. "I grew up in a very far away place, and so I don't know a lot of things I have to learn. Like kanji-"
He made a horrified face.
"-and shodo-"
He actually receded into the chair.
"-and tea ceremony, and manners, and ikebana. You know, princess stuff."
"Don't like that." Naruto said, pouting. "Can't you just not do it?"
She scooched onto the chair and pulled him close.
"No, unfortunately." She kissed his little forehead. "I have to go to my classes, just like you have to go to yours. You can come with me sometimes, if you want."
She looked at Sasuke.
"I just don't like the idea of him being alone all the time in the hospital, either."
He nodded, slowly. "So I watch Sasuke."
"And be a good… sibling?" She tried. "It's important that you two get along. I know he may not have been as nice as he should have been in the past, but…" she gave him an affectionate look, "it looks like that may have been mutual."
He had just enough manners to look embarrassed.
"You need each other. Be good to him, he needs friends right now." She gave him another kiss.
He put his head onto her shoulder and held onto her shirt.
She let him linger, and ran her fingers through his hair. Damn, it needed a cut. So many split ends and tangles.
"So, what homework do you have today?"
He slowly disentangled himself to pull a bunch of crumpled papers out of his backpack. Regina took them and straightened them out on his textbook.
"Do you need folders so your homework doesn't get destroyed?" She asked, trying to get the worst of the wrinkles out. "It can't make them easier to read."
He wrinkled his nose.
"You're getting folders." She informed him. "I hear that truly awesome ninja do all their homework and get good grades."
There was a sharp intake of breath.
"How are your grades?" She asked, having a bad feeling.
He looked absolutely ashamed. He shrunk away from her and his head lowered into his chest.
"I'm dead last in my class." He said quietly. "I fail a lot."
That made some sense with what she and Jiraiya had seen. She hadn't known it was that bad, though.
"Well, we can help you. It'll be ok." She put the book down, and lifted up his chin gently to make eye contact. "It's just important that you try. I'll make sure you get what you need."
She titled his face to kiss both of his little cheeks.
"That's my job now." Her snuggly baby seemed to be processing. "If you need help, I get it. That's how this works."
He sniffled.
"Let's try to do your homework. I don't know if I can personally help, but if I can't, I'll figure something else out."
She in fact could help with some of it (a fact which was both surprising and not, because he was a foot long and 8 years old, but also learning how to kill people), which left him in a much better place than on his own. He apparently thrived off the personal attention. If she could explain something, he seemed to retain it and continue to apply it.
Maybe he just got stressed in a lecture setting? She'd get it sussed out.
She looked up at the clock. It was about ten minutes until her meeting with his teachers.
"I have to go meet with Umino-sensei and Mizuki-sensei about you and Sasuke. I don't think you want to come, so could you stay here?"
He nodded, using basic geometry to calculate kunai throwing angles. Bizarre, but whatever. She wasn't in charge of the curriculum.
'Yet.'
She wriggled out from under his bony butt and let him resettle in the chair. Then she checked Sasuke's presents, still sprawled out all over his tummy. He'd evidently been overtaken with the need to sleep in the middle of opening letters.
Regina picked them up and re-stacked them on the table, and walked out. She paused at the door and surveyed the scene. Sasuke was calmly sleeping, and Naruto was obviously working hard.
She'd get him ramen for dinner. She might even eat some.
She had to book it to get to the Academy on time, but she made it. The secretary showed her to a meeting room, and brought her some tea.
"Thank you very much." She smiled with her eyes. She took a sip. Ew. Oversteeped green tea.
Regina hoped that it was one of those things that she could force herself to like.
The teachers showed up a few seconds later, looking mildly frazzled and clutching piles of paperwork.
"I'm sorry, Rejina-hime." Umino-sensei said, looking embarrassed. The other teacher gave him a weird look. "We were running late, due to grading."
"That's perfectly all right, I understand." They probably had piles of shit to do. Luckily, this hopefully wouldn't take too long.
He smiled. The other teacher smiled, too, and took a seat.
"So I understand that you have assumed guardianship of both Uchiha-kun and Uzumaki-kun." Mizuki-sensei said, all professionalism. "We prepared all of their assessments for your perusal."
He carefully passed two massive folders over to her.
"Am I allowed to review these elsewhere, or do they need to remain here at school?" She asked, eyeing them. It would take hours to read, even if she had been totally fluent.
"They are copies, you may take them with you." Mizuki-sensei smiled.
She smiled back. "Thank you. I look forward to reading them."
Regina leaned forward just a little bit, trying to look friendly. "I wanted to talk with you both about your personal assessments and recommendations for my wards. I thought it would be both faster and more accurate to meet with you directly, instead of receiving these reports third-hand."
They each nodded.
"Let's start with Uchiha-kun, shall we?" She picked up his file. "I have been informed that he is an excellent student."
"He is." Umino-sensei said quickly. "Very quick. He has the best grades in his class."
"He's quite good for his age." Mizuki-sensei agreed readily. "Good taijutsu scores, and excellent chakra control. He tends to do more than the required coursework. Uchiha-kun appears to be both dedicated and driven."
"And his interactions with other students? How does he handle situations?" Regina pried. She needed a baseline. And these two were among the few living adults that had had significant experience to him prior to… everything.
"Perfectly friendly, and very… admiring of his older brother." Umino-sensei winced.
"Uchiha-kun has a tendency to get upset easily." Mizuki-sensei said clinically. "He has been known to cry when he experiences even mild failure."
A tiny perfectionist placed under incredible pressure. Great. This was great.
"Do you have any particular concerns regarding his behavior, performance, or other issues?" Probably not. At least from before the incident. After this, who only knew what behavioral issues might surface. He was very young.
"None." They agreed.
"Good." She took a note for herself and put it in his file. They seemed to be very interested in it, because it obviously wasn't in Japanese. She closed the folder quietly, and switched to the other.
"And Naruto?" She asked, restraining the urge to tap her pen nervously on the folder. She doubted the assessment was as positive, if Naruto knew he was failing.
"Unable to concentrate on almost anything, failing most assignments,and incapable of basic chakra control." Mizuki-sensei analyzed. He was very professional. It almost made her forgive him for his hideous hat.
Almost.
"Any potential reasons for these issues?" She prepared another sheet of paper for Naruto and started taking notes.
"Lack of intelligence, maybe."
'Maybe. But Naruto seemed quick to think on his feet when I explained his homework earlier. He could recognize patterns and use tools, provided they were explained.'
"Any other reasons?" She asked, trying to sound positive and noncommittal.
Umino-sensei coughed. "I believe he has a very short attention span. Uzumaki-kun seems to have particular trouble when a lecture is very long, or when expected to read for prolonged periods of time."
"Which is most classes." Mizuki-san interjected. "He has trouble with the learning environment."
'So do lots of kids. I didn't study education, but my roommate Lindsey did, didn't she? She said a bunch of things about learning and teaching styles. So, lecture style not working for Naruto wasn't necessarily indicative of anything, save for that it doesn't work with how he processes information.'
"And his interactions with other students?" She asked. It was almost a formality, to some degree. She and Jiraiya had spied on him for a few days. It wasn't the whole picture, but she thought she had a pretty good idea.
"They seem to be irritated by him." Umino-sensei admitted. "He has few friends, if any. His loudness often bothers others."
"They are under the impression that he's volatile and stupid." Mizuki-sensei admitted, drinking his own tea. "He does little to dispel that impression."
'Where had they gotten that impression?' she wondered.
"Any particular concerns or suggestions?"
The room was oddly silent.
"I don't know that he's capable of passing." Mizuki-sensei said evenly. "He might be better off removed from the pressures of the program."
Umino-sensei interjected. "I believe he might succeed, given proper time and attention."
From the chill in the air she suspected that this was an area of contention for these co-teachers. She didn't acknowledge that fact.
"Do you believe that private tutoring or remedial work would be beneficial?" She didn't look up from her notes. Something about this was making her angry. It was hard to pick out what exactly was bothering her, though. It might have purely been personal- her time in primary school wasn't great.
"Yes." Mizuki-sensei said slowly, like he was contemplating it for the first time.
"Yes." Umino-sensei chimed in- but the tone was oddly aggressive.
"Thank you." She wrote that down, glad they couldn't read what she was writing. It was like being a spy. She closed the book and smiled with her eyes closed, willing the frustration away until she had the time and energy to re-examine it.
"I believe that Sasuke-kun has missed a significant amount of class now." She started again. "Would you be able to provide any assignments for both Sasuke-kun and Naruto-kun that are incomplete? I would prefer that they are not left behind."
"Of course." Mizuki-sensei handed her a folder with Sasuke's name on it. "Although we had only prepared Uchiha-kun's work for you today. Would you be able to return later this week for Uzumaki-kun's missing assignments?"
"It will be… a rather large amount." His face was tight, but apologetic.
'Well, that's suck city. But definitely my problem, now.'
"Thank you. I would greatly appreciate that. Would you prefer that I come by for another meeting, or to send it to the Tower?" She made another note. She would definitely not have enough time to help Naruto with years of missed homework. She'd have to outsource some of that.
They concluded the meeting with the traditional niceties, and she left carrying over twenty pounds of paper.
She took it to the house and sealed it up in a storage seal, then put it in a private space. Hopefully she wouldn't lose it. That was a lot of work for Umino and Mizuki-sensei. She couldn't ask them to compile it again.
Then she swung by the hospital. Sasuke was still sleeping, and Naruto was coloring on the back of his homework.
'I need to get that kid a sketchbook. I doubt doing that will further endear him to his teachers.'
"How's the homework?" She asked, trying not to seem too depressed. She didn't want him to feel like she thought he was too much work.
He was. But probably about as much as any other kid.
And he didn't deserve to feel that way.
"Good!" he held it up so she could see the front of it. It looked complete and fairly neat.
"That's great!" She ruffled his hair. "But maybe I should find you different paper to draw on. I feel like your teachers don't appreciate your art as much as I do."
He blinked and smiled.
"It's me, saving you!" He flipped it over. It was definitely two shapes, that's for sure. High art. He was a tiny, not-sexist Picasso.
"Oh, I can see that. That's really good!" She encouraged. She tried to remember how a teacher had managed to get her to stop doing the same thing, when she was little.
Oh, yes.
"I'll get you a sketchbook soon, so we can have all of your art in one place. That way it's easy to find."
He thought about that, then nodded seriously. "I don't want it to get lost."
"Of course. Did Sasuke wake up while I was gone?" It had only been an hour, but still.
"Once, but he just told me to stop eating caterpillars. I wasn't even eating any." He sniffed, as if insulted.
'Probably talking in his sleep. At least it wasn't violent or anything.'
"Well, I have a suggestion for you that isn't caterpillars." She grinned. "I have shodo class. You can come with me if you want, and after we could go get-"
"Ramen!?" He asked, eyes lighting up. "I was really good today. I want ramen."
"Yeah, ramen."
They wrote a note for Sasuke and left it on top of his other presents and then left.
Shodo class was long and boring. The little old priest continually lifted her arm and critiqued every stroke.
Naruto painted little ink drawings in the corner.
At the end of the two hours, she got some grudging feedback. She wasn't too bad, but not good. He was cautiously optimistic that she would eventually not be a disappointment.
'I'm 24 and doing this basically for the first time, I'll take it.'
'Although apparently I'm pretending to be 20. Jiraiya didn't even bother to ask me how old she was before announcing my 'birth'. At least he didn't provide a birthday, so I can use my own.'
Keeping the lies as simple as possible helped.
She carefully put Naruto's dried masterworks in a protective tube with her own, because the Sandaime apparently wanted to see her work. Hopefully he also liked artistic ink renderings of butts, shinobi, and princesses.
They went to the ramen stand hand in hand.
"Teuchi-san!" Naruto crowed, yanking the tube out from her other hand and wielding it aloft like Excalibur. "I made art and shodo!"
"You did shodo?" She asked, finally mentally logging the name of one of the few people who were nice to Naruto and therefore deserved her personal attention. 'Hand inside' was not a name she was particularly familiar with, but it was distinctive. So hopefully she'd actually remember it.
"Yeah, I copied some of yours." Naruto wiggled the tube.
"We can show Teuchi-san later," She corrected gently, prying it from his hands. "The Hokage wants to see it first." She would not be happy if broth got on them.
The prospect of importance made Naruto's chest puff up.
"That's impressive." Teuchi-san said, giving her a wink. "I'm sure he'll love it."
"Same thing as usual?" He asked them both.
They nodded and took their seats. After they ate, Regina paid and took her kiddo back home to scrub up and get ready for bed.
Today had been long and stressful- being responsible for two children was even more work than she'd anticipated. It was terrifying. They needed so much, and she had to do it all even though she had work and mandatory training.
But she'd gotten through today, hopefully without ruining anything.
Tomorrow, they'd just try it all again. One day at a time.